Compensation Leaves out Some Abuse Survivors A272-559Bc88b265a

Compensation leaves out some abuse survivors http://www.canada.com/saskatoonstarphoenix/news/local/story.html?id=e9cc270a-c063-4c26- a272-559bc88b265a Day students don't qualify for residential school settlement Jill Smith, The StarPhoenix Published: Wednesday, November 21, 2007 As Marjorie Quewezance wipes tears from her eyes, recounting her years at St. Phillip's Residential School, she wonders, "how did we manage to fall through the cracks?" Quewezance, 46, who is from the Keeseekoose First Nation near Kamsack, attended the school from 1966 until 1974 as a day student. She remembers picking rotten meat and maggots out of her soup at lunchtime one day, when one of the nuns came over and pushed her face into the bowl. "My forehead was burning," said Quewezance. She was beaten by the nun, who then rubbed her face with the spilled soup. Quewezance also remembers sitting beside a boarder of the school that day in the cafeteria. "They probably went through the same thing at some point," she said. The difference is Quewezance isn't eligible for part of the $1.9-billion common experience payment (CEP) program the federal government will pay out to residential school survivors, where the boarder who sat beside her in the cafeteria that day probably is. Quewezance was a day student, not a resident. "How is my misery worthless in comparison?" she asked. "Molestation doesn't just happen at night," said Quewezance, who says she was beaten, sexually molested and emotionally abused while she was a student at St. Phillip's. Quewezance isn't the only Saskatchewan residential school survivor who's been left out of the settlement. In order to receive compensation, students must show they went to a residential school, as it is defined under the Indian residential schools settlement. There are two northern Saskatchewan schools that don't currently fit the definition -- Ile-a-la-Crosse, northeast of Beauval, and Timber Bay, northeast of Montreal Lake. Chief Tammy Cook-Searson, of the Lac La Ronge Indian band, is working to change this. She says about 150 members of her band are former Timber Bay students. She retained lawyer Jake Tootoosis to make an application for the school to be recognized as a residential school covered by the settlement package. Tootoosis says a large number of people in Cook-Searson's band qualify for a CEP payment. "But she also has a number of people that experienced the same trauma but are not on the list," said Tootoosis. Cook-Searson says during the next two months they will compile student testimony and archival information to put together the formal application to have Timber Bay added to the list. The Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations is also lobbying to have Timber Bay and Ile-a-la-Cross defined as residential schools under the Indian residential schools settlement. "We can't exclude any one of them," FSIN vice-chief Lyle Whitefish said Tuesday. Whitefish says 26 Saskatchewan schools requested to be on the list, but there are 17 recognized residential schools on the official settlement website. The only Saskatchewan school that was recently added to the list was Crowstand School, near Kamsack. Crowstand, which was open from 1888 to 1913, would have few living survivors. If a child was five years old when the school closed, he or she would be 89 years of age now. "There'd be really no survivors of that school," said Quewezance, who says her great- grandmother attended Crowstand. Relatives of residential school survivors aren't eligible for compensation either, so for some, time is running out. Quewezance says she's still looking into getting compensation. "All my life I've been fighting the fight," she said. © The StarPhoenix (Saskatoon) 2007 .

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